Taipei Twin Towers will be launched in 2011,it will replace Taipei Main Station and link up with HSR,Taipei MRT,CKS airport MRT and TW railway.
about the designer:
dexigner.com/architecture/news-g4992.html
some pics about Twin Tower’s blueprint:
skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=336980
I split this off because it has not much to do with the HSR itself and that thread is getting too long.
On a more personal note: ugly as hell. I stick with the Far Eastern Plaza as Taipei Twin Towers, thank you. But hopefully they take that overpass down that’s just beside the North Gate (Beimen), totally spoils the view.
Rascal
Pretty uninspiring. Good architect though so there’s hope. Projects like this gets revised over and over again so it could always change for the better.
The models show the overpass gone and there is a “Memory Lane” going across Zhongxiao East Road and continuing north to Civic Blvd (is that where Yanping Road is now?). One picture shows it as a pedestrian walkway while another shows it with cars on it so it doesn’t look like it’s all thought out yet. One thing that boggles me about the current overpass are the incomplete ramps that have been hanging there going nowhere for several years now.
The buildings though… look like a heap of children’s blocks. Why is the topmost part of the taller building skewed at an angle? I just don’t get it.
What are they going to do with the current train station? I remember looking forward to that thing being built and opened, and now it’s being replaced. Damn, where did the time go? I say “current” instead of “old” because to me the old train station will be the old Japanese-era one they tore down.
one (the only one?) of those ramps is there because the north gate was originally slated for demolition when the bridge was built before it was decided to preserve it. you can see the ramp heading right for it.
There’s another on the other side (near the tax office) angled towards Zhonghua Road but it’s pointing in the wrong direction to work.
I agree. But now it’s better than it used to be, when it was obscured by two overpasses, one of which came so close to the North Gate that it seemed to physically touch it. They thankfully tore that one down in the early 90s. You can still see the remains of it now: it looks like a ramp leading to nowhere.
I don’t think it’s going to be replaced (as in removed) - it’s still in the pictures. I guess they are just extending it, or leaving the building and moving the departure/arrival to the new place. Well, that could be called replacing it, too (wasn’t sure which way you meant it).
I read they are moving the historic building (or complex?) at the North-West corner to a temporary site during the construction of the HSR line / station. It’s some kind of old railway workshop I think, and it will be moved back later.
That’s what I actually guessed. Glad they did not remove Beimen as it’s the only gate left in its original state.
The models show the overpass gone and there is a “Memory Lane” going across Zhongxiao East Road and continuing north to Civic Blvd (is that where Yanping Road is now?). One picture shows it as a pedestrian walkway while another shows it with cars on it so it doesn’t look like it’s all thought out yet. [/quote]
I hope they adopt the pedestrian walkway idea. The way the north gate is set up now makes little sense. I’m all for perserving historic sites, but if you’re going to preserve a century-old historic structure, you should give people access to it, not keeping it isolated on an island that’s enshrouded in auto exhaust from the perennial heavy traffic surrounding it.
Do we really need these? Sounds to me like another fun project to “loose” some money.
And the project moves on:
[quote]Taipei City unveils mega real estate project
•Publication Date：10/29/2012
•Source： Taiwan Today•By Meg Chang
Taipei Main Station is to be the site of a multibillion dollar real estate development featuring hotels, offices, restaurants and shops, according to the local government Oct. 28.
The project, comprising a 56- and 76-floor building, boasts floor space of 158,000 square meters and is 1.5 times bigger than Taipei 101. It will also be a transportation hub connecting three subway lines, the Taiwan High Speed Rail, Taiwan railway system and the airport rapid transit system.
Development consortium leader Taipei Gateway International Development Co. Ltd. estimates a price tag of NT$70 billion (US$2.37 billion) for Taiwan’s biggest urban project to date. A total of 23,000 jobs are expected to be created in the local construction, real estate and services sectors after work commences in 2013.
According to the city government, the project has been in the pipeline since 2007 but fell at the final hurdle due to financing problems.
[/quote]
Aside from teh name (Twin Towers 
:fume: ) I will be sad to see the current Main Station go, just as it hadfinally been shaped up. And I don’t want to think about travel disruptions…
mykafkaesquelite.blogspot.tw/201 … owers.html
Doesn’t look like the train station is going anywhere. Just another building project, more shops, more restaurants , more money being made and spent.
Looks like it’s more than the construction of two buildings. The model shows several revitalized city blocks that stretch all the way to the river. A project like this will take at least 5 or 6 years I’d say. I just hope it won’t take 5 years to get rid of the un-used bus lane in the middle of Zhongxiao in front of Taipei Main. Whose idea was that? :loco:
I like ambitious engineering projects although this one seems fairly uninspiring. Let’s see, how many twin towers are mentioned in Wikipedia?
Deira Twin Towers, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Deutsche Bank Twin Towers, Frankfurt, Germany
Guangzhou Twin Towers, Guangzhou, China
Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Twin Tower, a 1970s Hong Kong residential block design
Twin Towers Correctional Facility, Los Angeles, California
Twin Towers (Ramat Gan), two identical offices buildings in Ramat Gan, Israel
Wembley Stadium (1923), London, England (demolished)
World Trade Center, New York City, United States (destroyed on September 11, 2001)
Not many points for originality then. But at least it will help remove the aura of decrepitude that currently surrounds the Main Station (well, I didn’t see any homeless people sleeping in the parkland in that presentation drawing 
).
As much as I love this place and I do love it here, I wish to fuck the Government and PA could come up with the occasional original idea and not yet another ill formed rip off that once again helps to negate any lasting national pride and contributes to the national identity crisis that is so horribly pervasive.
I wish they would simply stop building on everything. But hard to quick make money from parks and fields.
Wow looks like the whole of Zhongxiao W Rd. will be massively revamped.
Remember the fantastic railway turntable on the east side of the old train station?